


Coming Home

by Masu_Trout



Series: FFVII Drabbles [2]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Avalanche, Drabble, Drabble Collection, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Happy 7/7 Everyone!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-07
Updated: 2015-07-07
Packaged: 2018-04-08 05:53:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4293228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masu_Trout/pseuds/Masu_Trout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Home is a place, or a person, or a state of being.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming Home

Home, for Tifa, is ash scattered across the Nibel mountain snowdrifts. It’s a pile of twigs, snapped and twisted under the weight of the Sector Seven plate, a city torn to rubble and a planet being bled dry. Home means fighting, fleeing, and losing, because Tifa’s never found a home the world would let her keep.

Reeve talks about a new era of peace. Barret talks about settling down. Cloud doesn’t talk much at all these days, and Tifa understands that because every time she sees her new bar she thinks _here is another place I could lose_.

\---

Midgar is a part of Aerith, whether she likes it or not. The city’s ceiling is her sky and its harsh smog coats her lungs wherever she goes.

Once, there’d been another place she called home. She remembers little-a bright, sterile room, needles in her arms, IVs trailing from the crook of her elbow-but it’s enough to know she never wants to go back.

One day when she is eleven, selling daffodils in Sector Two, she makes a decision: No matter what it takes, she will leave this place and find herself a home under the golden sun.

\--

Nanaki’s body is covered in scars. He wears each mark proudly; some nights when he cannot sleep he traces the raised flesh with his tail.

He sees the worry in his grandfather’s face when he returns from battle bloodied, and he understands it-- his grandfather cares for him. He doesn’t like to see Nanaki hurt.

Nanaki doesn’t know how to explain that he _wants_ this. He defends Cosmo Canyon with fangs and fire, fights to protect the land his mother died for and his father abandoned. 

It’s the least he can do for all those who raised him.

\---

Some nights, AVALANCHE gathers together to drink and to talk and to pretend they are still the same people they were when they fought together as one.

Cloud never speaks much on those nights. He prefers to listen, to take in the cacophony of seven drunken voices all speaking over each other-- even Vincent chimes in occasionally.

Most of his childhood memories are long gone, lost to Hojo and the mako that courses through his veins. Here, though, he leans back and watches; he basks in memories that he _knows_ belong to him. 

With AVALANCHE, he is home.

\---

Barret is the last man alive who really knew Myrna, and some days he can’t even remember her face.

The others he’s lost won’t be forgotten so easily-Aerith has all of AVALaNCHE to mourn her, and Dyne’s existence is written in the blood that stained the Golden Saucer’s floors. But Myrna died with Corel, and even the people who lived there don’t want to talk about that town anymore.

There are things he still holds on to: her smell, the warmth of her hands. If he abandons those, the last pieces of Myrna, she truly will be gone forever.

\---

Reeve’s executive apartment is impossibly luxurious, with expensive furniture and a wall of windows that look out onto Midgar’s plate. From the moment he steps inside, he knows he’s going to hate it.

His first weekend with Shinra is spent in a frantic flurry of renovations-he sections off the rooms, then constructs walls and corridors until the apartment finally feels _right_. The result is winding and claustrophobic, but it couldn’t be more perfect.

Reeve’s always felt at home in cramped and dim spaces. In this city, where Shinra watches everything, he needs that comfort more than ever.

\---

Vincent was sixteen when he ran away to join Shinra. He spent eight years with the company, and, much later, three in the company of AVALANCHE.

All those places have been home to him, but none of them were like the coffin.

He spent twenty-five years-nearly half his life-sleeping within the stone cradle. Sometimes, when his thoughts wander, he can still feel the grooves of the cold stone under his human hand.

He’s moved on from that place. He has a life and companions now. But some part of him will always be there, dreaming within the coffin.

\---

Yuffie raised herself.

While her father mourned his life away and his advisors tried desperately to reason with their conqueror, Yuffie was running away. She explored the ruins of the Da Chao Temple, fought monsters in the forests, and dove into the ocean like she could cross it if she swam hard enough.

Her handlers chased her-and, more often than not, caught her-but she always escaped again. There was no cage that could hold her, no pleading words that could convince her to stay.

Yuffie has always been chasing after something. Someday, she’ll figure out what it is.

\---

Cid was born in the wrong time. Every morning he wakes to the shadow of the tilting rocket and that thought races through his head. This town is _where_ he’s meant to be, but somehow the when is all wrong.

Fifty years earlier and space travel wouldn’t even have been a dream; he never would have known what was missing from his life. Fifty years later and perhaps it would be possible for him to reach the stars.

Instead he’s stuck here with a worthless rocket, Shinra’s apathy, and a dream that’s as far away as the moon.

**Author's Note:**

> Not even sure if July 7th is an actual FFVII Day thing, but I really want it to be. Reviews are always appreciated! 
> 
> (Also, if you want to chat AVALANCHE with me, you can find me on [Tumblr](http://masutrout.tumblr.com/)!)


End file.
